


Heart's Ease

by Tammany



Series: Mr. Spence's Repose [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Ambiguous sexual cues, Gen, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mr. Spence, Retirement, progress - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 03:24:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3554216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is, in a sense, where some things go wrong for Mr. Spence and Greg. At first. Sort of. </p><p>But I think you will determine that on the whole they behave well and make good progress by the time they are done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart's Ease

The spring sky was grey opal, and the air smelled of rain as Greg guided the high-powered 700cc motor scooter down the road out of Edgerton towards Mr. Spence’s cottage in the countryside. Greg felt what his mother had called “all at sixes and sevens,” and “that daft and confuddled.”

A month ago he’d come out to Manchester and beyond looking for Mycroft Holmes. Instead he’d found Mr. Spence.

He rolled the name over in his mind, meditating on it, as he seemed to do far too often since his first trip out to the little cottage in commuting range of Manchester.

Mr. Spence. Mr. Morgan Spence. The Marvelous Mr. Spence. Mycroft Morgan Spence Holmes. Or maybe it should be Mycroft Morgan Spence-Holmes, a double-barreled hyphenated name as offensively over the top as his old umbrella?

Mr. Holmes.

Mr. Spence.

“I’m Mr. Spence,” Mycroft had said, holding out his hand to shake Lestrade’s, as though they were strangers. “Mr. Spence,” he’d said again, clinging to his friend when they reclaimed their friendship.

Greg, bundled warm into a roomy leather riding jacket with his helmet firm on his head, let it roll through his mind like the dull roar of the scooter’s engine and the fup-fup-fup of the leather in the wind of his passage, patting his arms and torso.

Mr. Spence. It was like surround sound. Like cultural immersion. Greg had come looking for Mycroft Holmes. He’d found Mr. Spence—and that changed everything.

He turned onto the lane and cut the engine, coasting easily along the downhill approach and slipping easily onto the verge in front of the pasture, where he could see Mycroft—

See Mr. Spence…

He could see his friend, perfectly at ease in a worn, comfortable paddock jacket, raising high a Thor’s Hammer of a short sledge to drive something into the ground. Up went the mallet, and down with a steady, controlled sweep. The metal of the head rang out clean, as though metal had struck metal. On the ground around lay sheets of wavy galvanized steel roofing. Further away Archie, Mr. Spence’s constant companion, lay panting on the ground, watching his master at work with a bemused grin.

Greg steadied the scooter, kicked the tripod kick-stand, and dismounted, reaching up to unclip his helmet, but not to remove it. He leaned against the lichgate, forearms riding on the top line of the gate itself. The arbor was just beginning to cover over with new-growth vines.

Clematis, Greg thought. He’d never been one for flowers. When he’d set up his beds in London he’d been thinking of tomatoes from a little, warm corner of the garden, and cucumbers and carrots, and beetroot. Homely things. Only coming out here, to Mr. Spence’s cottage, surrounded by the country gardens and the bloody, blooming hedgerows, had he started to think about flowers. He’d sent for catalogues and taken books out of the library, and then bought more books and loaded them onto his smartphone. Flowers and flowers and more flowers. Dahlias, for God’s sake.

I mean, he thought, really—dahlias! Just look at one of those—big as a car headlight and twice as bright.  Or roses…who knew there were so many kinds? Before, he’d known red and pink and salmon and yellow and white—the kind you got in a florist’s when your missus was angry with you. Long-stemmed tea-roses. Now he knew shrub roses and rugosas and centifolias and Old Fashioned roses and heritage roses and David Austen roses and they came in a million pinks and plums and radiant whites and creams and…God. Who knew? Who ever thought of it?

And Mr. Spence didn’t even garden, beyond a few perennials in the front and back garden. Some hollyhocks. Yet Mr. Spence was setting aside a hundred square feet of his back garden for Greg, in the sunshine, as an “allotment.” So Greg could grow his veg…

The sledge hammer rose and fell. Rose and fell. From his place at the lichgate Greg thought maybe he was driving in rebar rod.

Mycroft Holmes, he of the bespoke suits and spotless ties, he of the hand-cobbled brogues and the immaculate tie and pocket square, he of the priceless pocket watch and fobs, was out in a pasture driving rebar into the ground.

No. Mr. Spence was driving rebar, wielding a hammer with godly confidence. Mr. Spence would do something amazing with galvanized steel roofing. It would somehow resolve the problem with sharing territory with a badger….and didn’t Greg find that unsettling in its implications!

“Oi,” he shouted, raising one arm. “Need a hand out there?”

Mr. Spence didn’t notice, though Archie did. The little dog sat up and barked once, his flag-staff of a tail wagging frantically. He seemed to grin through the explosion of whiskers that defined his face.

“Oi, My…Mr. Spence!”

Stilll no reaction.

Greg stripped off his riding gloves, opened the lichgate, and closed it behind him, struggling to remember the rules of this new universe. Even though Mr. Spence’s big bronze horse wasn’t in residence, the gate had to be closed, “because we can’t afford to develop bad habits where Dominic is concerned—he’s a dratted Houdini.” So good habits it was. Gate latched, he turned back and proceeded across the field. Only as he came close did he register on Mr. Spence’s peripheral vision. The man straightened with a start, holding the hammer defensively…leaving Greg suddenly glad he still wore his helmet.

He put up his hands. “Nah, nah, nah, Mmm Morgan. ‘S Just me, yeah?” He slipped off the helmet, grinning a bit sheepishly. “Just me, right?”

Archie, who’d never doubted it for a moment, galloped up and gamboled around his ankles, making odd little doggish rumbles and moans. Greg leaned over, but kept his eyes on Mr. Spence. “Just thought you might need a hand with that,” he said, jutting his chin toward the work in hand.

Mr. Spence put the sledgehammer down, and fished in his ears, pulling out fancy ear plugs. “Sorry. What?”

Greg laughed. “So that’s why you didn’t hear me call. Just offering to give you a hand.”

The tall ginger looked around, frowning. “Maybe,” he said, sounding unsure of himself for once. “I had planned the process for one. I’m not sure…” He looked up again apologetically. “I suspect you’d feel rather patronized if I asked you to hand me rebar rods one at a time?”

Greg snorted. “A bit. Not that much, though. What are you doing?”

“The local commission determined that the extension of the sett isn’t vital. They’re allowing me to attempt to discourage the residents from moving into my territory using techniques that shift the animals’ goals and behaviors. First I’m creating an iron fence under the ground, too difficult to burrow through easily. Then I’m putting up chutes redirecting traffic from the sett exit back out of the field and into the hedgerow—that’s what the galvanized roofing is for. After that I’ve been allowed to pour in a variety of natural extracts that smell bad to the badgers, and to put food out in the hedgerow to try to encourage them to stay on their side of the line.” He smiled. “Eventually they want me to edge the whole pasture with rebar rod and roofing. I feel a bad case of fortress mentality coming on.”

“Lot of work,” Greg said, feeling cheered—and unwilling to explain why. “Get another hammer for me, and I can work on fencing the perimeter every time I’m up to visit.”

“Speaking of which?” Mr. Spence said, one elegant arched brow rising in a way that bound Greg’s memories of Mr. Holmes to his new memories of Mr. Spence. “I wasn’t expecting you to come out this week. The spare room’s not ready for you—I’ll have to go give it a tidy before you can shift in your luggage.”

Greg shook his head. “No need. Look—that’s what I’m here for. Got something I want to show you.” He bounced on the balls of his feet, caught between anxiety and delight. “I think you’ll like it. Can you leave the badger works for now?”

Mr. Spence’s brow flew up again. He cocked his head, frowned, pondered. The field was silent except for all the country-noises that were not quite natural to Greg, who missed hooting car horns and the slap of tires on smooth asphalt. Finally he nodded. “Help me get thing stored,” he said. “It’s likely to rain, and the rebar and the mallet will rust, even if the galvanized roofing won’t.”

Greg helped him gather the material up and tuck them into the lee of one of the pasture’s stone walls. Together they tarped it all over with a big navy-blue tarp that rattled and crackled as they pinned it down under fist-sized stones. Then they headed for the lichgate.

“My word, Greg,” Mr. Spence said, eyes huge. “Is that a scooter, or a road bike?”

“More scooter than road bike, but it’s legal on the highway,” Greg said, proud of the beast. “Not quite the monster I had back in the day, before I got married. Had an old Norton Commando. But this is a sweet little town machine. And, well…” he shrugged, caught between self-amused resignation and regret. “I’m not as young as I used to be. I like the low center of gravity. Hard to turn myself over on this thing.”

“Please tell me you didn’t ride it up from London,” Mr. Spence said, voice fretful. At his feet Archie danced and grumbled and whined, looking uneasily up at his master.

Greg had begun to realize he could use Archie as a way of gauging Mr. Spence’s hidden feelings. This time, watching the little dog’s ears flick and his anxious glances, he concluded Mr. Spence was honestly frightened for him.

He didn’t know whether that thrilled him or merely amused him.

He had known for years that Mycroft Holmes was attracted to him—or, as he’d put it the first time he’d realized, “Damned if he don’t half fancy me!” He’d felt different ways about it at different times in his life. Married and living the straight life in his forties, he’d felt amused compassion—much as he felt for Molly in her aching longing for Sherlock. During the divorce? In a strange and odd way, without wanting to act on it, he’d found it a comfort and a reassurance: in spite of everything, someone, somewhere wanted him, and kept on wanting him, through thick and thin. During the years of Sherlock’s “death,” when Mycroft had drawn back into his reserve more than ever, he’d wondered if he’d imagined it all, and looked constantly and in frustration for the little tells that suggested he still had appeal for the younger man. After Sherlock’s return, as the traveling dog and pony show that was Sherlock and John and Mary and Mycroft and Magnussen thundered through his professional and his social life, and Mycroft struggled to reinvent his relationship with Sherlock, he as good as wished he’d never met the man.

But when he’d “died,” Greg had missed him. Even guessing he was well and in deep cover, he’d missed him. Now that he’d found him again, he floundered, unsure of himself—and relieved to see Mr. Spence’s silly little Scottie tap-dance out the fast beats of his master’s worry for Lestrade.

It was there in Archie’s ears, in his black eyes, in his whines and grumbles. Mr. Spence looked at the scooter and saw Greg dead or injured, and fretted…and Greg felt anchored for the first time in years.

“It’s perfectly safe,” he lied, cheerfully. “Safe as houses.”

“The majority of fatal accidents occur in…”

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t go there. I’ve been riding since I was a kid. Come on—put Archie in the house and let me show you something.”

“Archie doesn’t like being left behind. Let me drive us. Then he can stay in the car.”

“Tell you what—I’ve ordered a doggy side-car for this thing, but it’s not here yet. For now—I’ll let you carry him.”

“It’s not safe! If he panicked in traffic…”

“So put him in a carrier,” Greg growled. “Come on, Mike. Not in the car. I want to show you something.”

He sounded as whiney as Sherlock, he thought. But it mattered. He wanted to be the one driving Mike around the streets of the town—he wanted to show Mr. Spence his own home town. The coffee shop where he got his coffee when he went into town on errands. The post office. The bookie. The little park with the boxwood hedges and the painted cast iron benches where the old folks sat in the sun. Greg wanted to run the rumbling scooter through the streets with Mr. Spence hanging on and show what he’d found, what he’d deduced—and what he’d done.

“Come on, Mike,” he said, turning begging into cocky teasing, to save them both face. “Scared to ride on a scooter?”

Mr. Spence’s eyes narrowed. “Not when I’m the one driving it,” he replied.

“Check my record, then, if you don’t think I’m safe.”

Mr. Spence sighed gustily and gave in. “Very well. I’ll even leave Archie home. This time.”

Greg grinned, feeling his muddled feelings race and rush and churn—and lighten.

Mr. Spence took Archie in, and came out wearing a warm scarf, a balaclava hat, and a pair of gloves. Greg handed him the second helmet he’d brought along, planning for this.

They mounted.

“Reminds me of an assignment I had in Rome, once,” Mr. Spence said, voice pensive. “There was a young woman named Rita who taught me to drive a Vespa.”

Greg grinned to himself, and felt Mr. Spence settle easily against his back, as the two found their seating on the big scooter. “Hope you remember how it’s done,” he called back.

Mr. Spence snorted. He settled against Greg’s back—not too close, not plastered from groin to chin against the other man and clinging monkey-tight, but easily, brushing close, holding firm. His posture reminded Greg that the man rode horseback. It made him think this was what it would be like if a man rode a centaur.

The image shivered through him.

Ten years ago, married, older than Mycroft, living the straight life, he’d have laughed, even as he admitted the erotic shiver of the fantasy. Today it stabbed him in a way he’d not been stabbed since his randy, no-limits teens and early twenties, when he’d been living “la vida loca.”

He started the engine, and eased the scooter from the verge, turning it carefully and heading back toward town. Mr. Spence moved against him, never too close, never too intense, but always there—a light presence brushing his back, warm fingers gripping his flanks, the heat of his groin at Greg’s bum.

“It’s a pretty place you found,” he shouted back over the engine sounds. “Been exploring.”

“Mmmm,” Mr. Spence said, and rode the centaur with tender propriety.

This was going to work, Greg thought. He’d planned it all out carefully.

Mr. Spence…this new, unexpected, unsettling variation on the theme of Mycroft Holmes...wasn’t ready for Greg moving into his life. Not really. Not the way long trips up from London and nights spent in solitary Mr. Spence’s spare room suggested. Greg could read it in every complicated, mix-message exchange they had. Push in—pull away. Dance closer-dart back. Mr. Spence was no more ready to let Greg waltz through his life at will than he was ready to let that poor brock up in the pasture take over the entire four acres of field. It would be another thing when safe barriers were in place—rebar rods hammered deep into the earth forming an underground palisade, heavy sheets of galvanized roofing walling the badger away from the field—and from everything Mr. Spence held dear that ran in that field.

Only when Mr. Spence knew Dominic’s hocks were safe from badger holes and Archie was prevented from proving his badger-hunting heritage relevant would he relax and enjoy sharing the countryside with the badger and his sett-mates.

No more was he ready for Greg in his spare room, in his one little loo, farming tomatoes and cucumbers in his back garden—and trying to squeeze a few of the fascinating new flowers into Mr. Spence’s perennial beds. He wasn’t ready to be responsible for helping Greg pass the time—find a coffee shop, a news stand, a bookie, the town library.

Greg had worried for weeks about how to make this work—because for the first time in years he wanted a friendship to work so much it shook him to the core. He’d gone hunting Mr. Holmes, expecting a bit of a “Hello, you,” and a chin wag, and not a lot more. He’d found Mr. Spence and realized in finding him that Mr. Spence was everything Mycroft Holmes had been, and more. That Mr. Spence could be a true friend. Greg’s true friend.

How long, he’d asked himself, had it been since he’d had a true friend? The kind you had when you were a kid, who owned your heart?

He didn’t know how long it had been. Longer than forever. Mr. Holmes had never been that friend—they had been partners, but as professionals. They’d kept their boundaries intact. Sherlock? Only a masochist chose Sherlock as his one true heart’s ease.

Greg sniggered, thinking about that. “Heart’s ease” was another word for violas—or pansies. Pansies were a corruption of the French word for “thoughts.” Pansies were the flower of thoughts. Pansies were violas, the shrinking violets, shy and beautiful, tender and tenacious. Pansies were also men of a particular orientation.

Sherlock was no one’s heart’s ease. Not a viola, for all he had his violin. Not a pansy, for all his great brain and flashing thoughts. And Mr. Holmes had been too crisp and dry and reserved for pansies. But Mr. Spence? With his big, golden horse and his devoted little Scottie and his semi-wild orange tiger moggie who made kissy-face with him ever so delicately on the stone wall of the pasture when they crossed paths in the morning…. Mr. Spence could be heart’s ease, maybe, if Greg could just keep from scaring the poor bastard off.

I’m almost sixty, Greg thought, as he rounded the turn into town and headed down the high street. I’ve been alone so long I can’t quite decide the last time I wasn’t. I didn’t know I wanted a best friend. I didn’t know I wanted that thing John and Sherlock have with each other…or even more. But I do. God, I do. And I can’t risk scaring him off.

So the thing to do was show him—show Mr. Spence how he’d arranged everything. Pounded in his own palisade, put up his own walls, secured their boundaries, made himself independent of Mr. Spence. A friend, not an invader. A companion, not a vampire up from London and ready to suck Mr. Spence’s soul from his body.

“See,” he said, as he pulled up in front of the little coffee shop. “You told me about this place. Now I can bring you here wi’out you having to get your car out.” He herded Mr. Spence ahead of him, hand in the small of his back, guiding him to a table tucked near the back, under a window that looked out over an alley that had been reclaimed as a hanging garden—all old cobbles and bricks and pots filled with flowers. (Geraniums, pelargoniums, sweet potato vine…pansies. Greg was learning to know them on sight.)

He laughed with the barista, who agreed that Mr. Spence’s favorite was an Americano sweet and white. He showed Mr. Spence how quiet the corner table was—and how nice the view.

“It’s a great little town,” he said. “Easy jump over to Manchester if you need civilization, but it’s got all the basic conveniences here. You can get to everything right here on the high street. They’ve still got all the old stuff, like you find in little neighborhoods, or in old Agatha Christie novels: greengrocer, butcher, fishmonger. I’ll show you around after we finish here.”

And he did. He showed Mr. Spence the walk to the Post Office. He stopped in at the bookie’s, who already knew him by name, and he and the bookie talked up a storm while Mr. Spence silently filled out a betting form and placed a bet for a scant ten pounds. Greg and the bookie teased him remorselessly. Greg stopped at the butcher’s and insisted on buying them a rasher of bacon and some sausages.

He almost didn’t notice that Mr. Spence was more and more quiet as the tour went on. When he did, he shivered inside, and tried to work out what was going on. Was even this too close? Should he have found someplace an hour or so away from Mr. Spence’s little cottage?

He gritted his teeth, and frowned. No. An hour away was silly.

“Come on,” he said. “One more surprise.”

“Mmmm.” Mr. Spence said, in bland dispassion. He followed Greg as the shorter man led him down a lane from the high, along a back alley, down another bit of lane, and around a corner to a refurbished street of terraced houses—old remnants of the solid working-class families that had once been the backbone of local industry.

“There—the one painted bright blue with white trim,” Greg said, and cut across the street. There was no front garden. Even the pavement was scant and narrow. The buildings were brick coated in thick layers of semi-gloss paint. Greg’s was the blue of a child’s crayon, the one he’d use for sky and sea. The door was simple, but the brass fittings were good, and there was a handsome little brass mail slot. Greg fished in his pocket and found the key. He turned it, opened the door, and stepped back, sweeping his arm to usher Mr. Spence in. “Welcome to my abode, Mr. Spence!”

Mr. Spence stood on the slate flags of the walkway, hands in his jacket pockets, face still and cold as a cloudless midwinter sky. “Abode?” he said. His voice was flat and thin.

“Well, just for when I’m up for awhile,” Greg said, not sure what was going wrong. “I figured I was coming up enough it justified setting myself up a little place. So I wasn’t camping out at yours, yeah? Give you your privacy back…”

Mr. Spence nodded. “Very thoughtful,” he said, in a voice empty of gratitude. It was also empty of blame or reproach—but Greg had been expected relief and maybe even excitement. After all, Greg wouldn’t have got a place of his own if he hadn’t been coming up to visit often enough to fear being seen as a pest, right?

“Come on in,” Greg said again, a bit more hesitantly. “Lemme make you a nice hot cuppa. I got mugs and there’s fresh milk in the fridge. Even got an electric kettle, and the neatest little cooker…” His voice slowed, and fell away. “Mike?”

Mr. Spence smiled—a tight, artificial smile that took Greg back to the days of MI5 and MI6, when Mycroft Holmes lived locked inside the steel fortress of his role. That was the man who’d lived before Mr. Spence.

“Maybe later. I’m still full from the coffee we had at the café.” He blinked owlishly, and hunched deeper into the plain, worn, very NON-Mycroftian paddock jacket. “Indeed, I’m a bit tired now. And I still have to finish the work on the pasture. Why don’t I call a cab to take me on back?”

“Wha…no. I can give you a lift…”

“No. You’ll be wanting to get settled. I can go back now.”

Greg felt a shiver run through him, and a sick, miserable ache. He’d held a boy in an alley once—a kid, really, from one of the West Indian gangs. He’d been run through in a knife fight. Well, knife—more like a machete. Greg had shouted for the team to get the ambulance in. He’d pulled in Anderson, whose forensic training meshed well with advanced first aid skills. He’d held the boy’s hand. All the while he’d known it was too late. He’d watched the boy’s life ebb, one breath, one heartbeat at a time. He was dead a good fifteen minutes before the ambulance found them nested in amidst the skips of rotting food and the urine-scented mulch of old trash layering the surface of the alley.

It was as though Mr. Spence was dying before his eyes…each breath he faded further. Mr. Holmes was returning…a weary, humbled Holmes with no kingdom left, no fine suits, no Anthea on her blackberry, no mysterious sleek Jaguar waiting to come fetch him. No umbrella. Just an ordinary man, balding, with his hands shoved deep in the pockets of an olive-drab coat with a plaid collar.

“Aw, come on,” Greg said, knowing he’d already lost. “Come in and let me show you around. You’ll like it.”

He’d imagined how much Mr. Spence would like it. The tidy little garden in back, making up for the lack in front—a garden that got decent sun, where Greg could try growing flowers without taking over Mr. Spence’s spare perennial beds. The little sitting room, with the glowing electric fireplace and the bay window looking out over the garden. The angle of the rooms that hovered somehow between the kitchen and parlor, too small to be a dining area, but quite splendid for a breakfast nook. Upstairs there were two bedrooms—one he intended to fix up simply, with just a bed and a dresser, but the other he planned to line with acoustic insulation so he could work with his guitar. He hadn’t done that since..God. Forever. He’d been going to show Mr. Spence, and laugh about it. Too old to dream of being the next Mick Jagger now, yeah?

But it wasn’t happening. “No,” Mr. Spence said, stepping back and once again giving a brittle, synthesized smile. “I really should get back.”

“Then let me drive you,” Greg growled, and locked the door and was halfway down the walk before Mr. Spence could protest.

They walked back to the scooter together. Or at least, more or less simultaneously, on the same streets. The drive back was…proper. Mr. Spence sat upright, hands just grazing Greg’s ribs. He dismounted easily the second Greg pulled over to the verge, and had his helmet off before Greg could complete the shut-down of the machine.

“Here,” he said to Greg, shoving the helmet forward. “Best be sure to take it. Easy to forget.”

“Aye, I’ll lock it on,” Greg said. He twisted, clamped it into its holder, and turned back to Mr. Spence. “Want some help with the badger stuff?”

“No. I’ve already worked out the progression for just one. I don’t want to insult you by giving you token jobs like handing me the next sheet of roofing. And I only have tools for one.” Inside Archie barked twice. Mr. Spence turned his head. “I should let him out,” he said, absently.

“Thought I might have you over for dinner, tonight,” Greg said, making one more try.

Mr. Spence shook his head. “Perhaps we can arrange it for your next visit,” he said. Then, brightly, added. “At least you won’t have to give me warning so I can get the spare room in order for you.” He nodded, then, and was gone, walking up the way to the door of his cottage.

Greg waited, hoping..but he didn’t come back out to work in the pasture with Archie at his heels.. He didn’t stand in the window, so Greg could wave a jaunty goodbye. He didn’t show up in the back garden to add aged compost to the vegetable beds he’d set up for Greg.

After a time Greg sighed, started the scooter, and drove back.

Dinner was lonely—and more work than he liked putting in for just himself. But it would be a shame to let the chops he’d set aside for dinner go to waste. He considered going out to the pub…but he’d always imagined taking Mr. Spence there, listening to him cluck and fuss and insist he didn’t really like going out in public. They’d keep it short, just a pint or two, and Greg would tempt Mr. Spence to people-watch…

He went up to the spare bedroom and plucked at the guitar, but his heart wasn’t in it.

He went back down and looked into the back garden. He’d wanted so much to show Mr. Spence the back garden…the little bed he’d already started, the cucumber frames where he was forcing young plants both for here and for the vegetable patch at Mr. Spence’s place. He’d wanted to show him the old pigeon loft, and the little, friendly chicken coop, and discuss his idea of getting in some layers, and some fancy pigeons, and see how that turned out. And there was the listing for rescue whippets… He felt like he was tying to his own heritage—chickens and pigeons and a whippet and dahlias and a bit of veg.

He looked around the little flat and wondered what he’d been thinking. That he could creep into a new life at his age? Turn Mycroft Holmes into a friend, not just a team member? Maybe even…

He closed his eyes and admitted it to himself. He’d gone looking for Mycroft Holmes, who was a good partner and a good man, but no more. But he’d found Mr. Spence, and Mr. Spence woke memories in his hands of what it felt like to stroke down the flanks of a willing lover. Mr. Spence reminded him of the radiant joy of a day spent with a kindred soul—and a night spent testing that soul-bond in wordless sighs and touches. Mr. Spence was everything Mr. Holmes had been—and more. Softer. Sweeter. More…human. More desirable.

“Idiot,” he told himself. “Of all the men to fall for. And after all these years. You’re nearly sixty, you fool…”

He showered and went to bed early, dressed in a t-shirt and soft running shorts.

He wished he hadn’t leased this place for a year. He wished he had already adopted a whippet. He wished Mr. Spence hadn’t died on his watch, leaving only Mr. Holmes behind.

He slept, and dreamed of a West Indian boy slowly and carefully asking him to give final messages to his mother and sisters and his best girl. The boy’s hand grew weaker and weaker in Greg’s, and when he looked down into his face, he wasn’t there any more. Instead it was Mr. Spence, in his shabby green paddock jacket, eyes closed, ending his brief life on a sigh.

He was woken by barking and knocking.

“Whuh?”

He sat, scrubbing his face and hair, trying to place himself in this strange room. His flat in London was laid out differently. He stood and shambled—out of the room, down the stairs, across the little hall to the front door. He peered out the old pebbled glass of the side-light.

“Mike?”

“Let me in,” Mr. Spence called, firmly. Archie was standing beside him, front paws braced on the door, nose whuffling at the mail slot, which clanked up and down with his attention.

“What’s wrong?”

“Let me in,” Mr. Spence said, voice going all Mr.-Holmesian.

Greg opened the door and stepped aside.

Mr. Spence swept in with all the energy Greg associated with his former self—Mycroft Holmes, who ruled the world from his offices in Whitehall and Babylon-on-Thames and in the Diogenes. He paused in the entry and looked Greg up and down, brows rising. “It’s a look,” he said—sounding very much as though he wasn’t even sure of that. Then he huffed. “Go. Upstairs. Get something on—a dressing robe if you have anything so civilized. A pair of trousers if not. I’ll make tea.”

Greg blinked at him, and said, “You do know you’re very bossy?”

Mr. Spence grinned, as Mr. Holmes would not have. “It’s a constitutional trait. Now, go—shoo. By the time you’re back I’ll have a kettle on.”

Greg scooted up the stairs, heart rising even as he did. When he come down dressed in jeans his hair still stood up all over his head—but his smile filled his face and lit his eyes when he saw Mr. Spence sitting primly at the little table in the breakfast nook, a pot of tea steaming at his elbow and Archie lying at his feet.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” Greg said, and decided not to care that his voice shook and his relief was too obvious. “I was afraid I’d made a complete dog’s dinner of it.”

Mr. Spence shrugged. “It occurred to me perhaps I didn’t understand your intentions,” he said. He looked sharply at his companion. “Perhaps if you’d explain?”

Greg looked at him warily, took a slug of tea—nearly burning his palate in the process—and shook his head. “Uh-uh! No chance. After the mess I made of it this afternoon? No. What did you think was going on?”

“I thought I’d made you feel unwelcome. Or that you didn’t like spending the time in the cottage. Or that you had fallen in love with the village, and were trying to explain that you were considerably less fond of the man who’d introduced you to it.” He shrugged, then, and wrapped long fingers around the fat mug Greg had purchased. “Or something,” he added, ruefully. He looked down into the tea. “I think at least part of what I thought was perhaps, ‘Oh, no, I’m no longer the one in control.’” He looked back up, apologetic. “I’m quite serious. I’m inherently inclined to manage things myself. It makes me a terrible companion.”

“Well, maybe a bit tetchy on occasion,” Greg conceded. Then he asked, “What brought you back?”

Mr. Spence considered, then said, slowly and carefully, “Even if you don’t like staying at the cottage…I like seeing you. On whatever terms you find comfortable. And if I am honest, I will confess, I am a poor and uncertain host: a natural recluse. There are advantages to you having a place of your own to retreat from me when I go broody.”

Greg studied him, heart filling. “And?”

“And I would hate for you to give up on me.”

“And?”

“And…I would miss you if you stopped coming out.”

“And…”

Mr. Spence growled, softly and fiercely. “You’re being quite difficult, Greg.”

“I do that. Seriously—and? Anything more?”

He was silent for the longest time, pale eyes staring into Greg’s dark ones. Then, almost too softly to be heard, he said, “And because losing you would break my heart.” He looked away. “Take that as you will,” he added, brusquely. “I would be honored to have you as my friend, under such terms as appeal to you.”

Greg sipped his tea, then gathered his nerve. If Mr. Spence could be brave, he could. “What if I don’t know the terms?” He looked down at his own hands—square, neat, serviceable, graceful. “I’m serious, Mike. That’s part of why I got this place. I thought if you had yours and I had mine, we could figure out what we wanted with a bit less pressure, yeah?”

Mr. Spence looked back at him, frowning. “You don’t know…..?”

Greg shrugged, and met his friend’s gaze, a wry grin hitching his mouth sideways. “What can I say?”

Mr. Spence stared. Slowly his face came alive, and flushed a tender pink that glowed a particularly sweet shade in the dim light of the breakfast nook. “Oh.” He took a shivery breath. “I thought that the limits were fairly narrow.”

Greg shrugged. “Not—so obviously as you might expect,” he said.

“You’ve done this before?”

“Not since before I was of age, I’m afraid.”

“But…you have?”

“Yes.”

“And liked it?”

Greg shrugged and grinned. “A bit hard to tell amidst the teen hormones and the social crises…but, yeah. I liked it. Just liked other things too—easier to come by, easier to live with. Yeah?”

Mr. Spence nodded, and said no more.

Archie gave a soft, happy whooooof, and stretched out, back paws grazing Mr. Spence’s sturdy boots, front claws scraping lightly against Greg’s bare feet.

“He’s a good dog,” Mr. Spence said, looking down fondly.

“I was thinking of adopting a rescue whippet,” Greg said.

Mr. Spence cocked his head. “Oh, my. I hope they get on.”

“Me, too. I was thinking some chickens, too—there’s a coop in the back garden. And a pigeon loft.”

“Any breed in mind?”

“Besides messenger pigeons?” Greg thought about it. “Those funny ones that look like miniature turkeys, with a fan tail and a puffed out chest.”

Mr. Spence nodded, smiling.

“I started a flower bed,” Greg said. “Come see.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“I’ll turn on the back light.”

They stood together, and Archie joined them. Then went out onto the tiny brick patio and looked out over Greg’s miniature kingdom. “I put in dahlias,” he said. “For cutting.”

“And some pansies, I see,” Mr. Spence said, and risked leaning slightly, so his shoulder brushed warm against Greg’s.

Greg leaned slightly back. They stayed that way, staring at the little worked flower bed. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve been studying garden flowers this month. Pansies. You know what else they’re called?”

Mr. Spence smiled, and nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Heart’s ease.”


End file.
